Donald Kennedy

Yesterday the attendees of the AAAS meeting gathered to listened to the celebrity actor David Krumholtz from the hit series Numb3rs. Today the room filled with people wanting to listen to the lecture by science celebrity Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of the magazine Science. Unfortunately, dr. Kennedy had nothing noteworthy to mention in his one hour speech. The first point he made was that the US should be more lenient in its immigration laws in an attempt to make it easier for foreign scientists to work in the US. He made this point in the first five minutes of his speech, and for some reason didn’t elaborate on it. The second point he made was that globalisation increases the risk of disease-carrying and disease-causing organisms to travel the world and wreak havoc. Indeed, a valid argument, and also a very old one that everyone is more than aware of. We didn’t need to hear this from the editor-in-chief of one of the most influential scientific publications in the world. A man in his position is expected to drop political bombs, and unfortunately he missed the opportunity to drop his on this occasion.

Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of the magazine Science, speaks in front of a large audience at the AAAS meeting.